RW Patrik Laine - Tappara, Liiga (2016 Draft) III

[trick9]

He's a great prospect but he tries to do everything himself. Something about him looks awkward too- maybe it's his long stick or his skating stride. He has all the tools tho and looks like he can get even better than he is now. Scary

He's bit cocky and seems perfectly aware of just how good he is.

Watching him play is kind of like watching someone play be a player -mode on video games. The computer just can't keep up so you'll end up trying to do more by yourself. I don't think that will be an issue in the NHL when he gets to play with better teammates.

 

[Plural]

To be clear, i wasn't trying to paint Laine as negative. A guy with his size and skill will obviously have times when he plays the puck a lot. I was just wondering the reasoning behind it. Just like you guys said, in the NHL it probably won't be a problem.

 

[kunekune]

He's bit cocky and seems perfectly aware of just how good he is.

Watching him play is kind of like watching someone play be a player -mode on video games. The computer just can't keep up so you'll end up trying to do more by yourself. I don't think that will be an issue in the NHL when he gets to play with better teammates.

Yeah and it is a part of Tapparas strategy. Whenever Laine is on ice and Tappara got the puck all players start looking for Laine to pass the puck to him and wait him to do his magic.

Allinall Laine is the maestro-type player when on ice but he knows how to use linemates to play winning hockey.

 

[wloff]

http://www.mtv.fi/sport/jaakiekko/l...liigan-finaaleissa-toinen-mm-kisoissa/5824896

Translation: both Laine and Puljujärvi are interested in joining the U18 world junior team, whoever gets knocked out in this semi-final series will likely do so.

 

[Plural]

Translation: both Laine and Puljujärvi are interested in joining the U18 world junior team, whoever gets knocked out in this semi-final series will likely do so.

This feels weird to say as a Oulu resident, but I really hope that Pulju plays in the U-18 games.

I'm heading to Tampere when the final series is on and hoping to catch HIFK vs. Tappara final series game. Also, I really, really want to see the physical dominance from Pulju against his age peers. He's going to rock that tournee.

 

[93LEAFS]

Really...?

McDavid and MacKinnon were 6'0 in their draft years, and they are both elite skaters, among the best in the NHL. I don't think it's fair to compare 6'4 Laine to them skating wise. If he would have their speed he would be realistically dubbed the next Mario Lemieux and he'd have more hype than Connor McDavid. All his tools, 6'4 210 monster at the age of 17 while being arguably the fastest skater in the NHL? That's not even fair to expect from him.

He's a very good skater for a guy his size. Just not elite. Alex Ovechkin was elite skater, but Laine will be bigger than him aswell in few years. I think Ovechkin was 6'2 in his draft year.

That person asked if I had watched Laine (insinuating I hadn't) because I said he wasn't a great skater, I was just saying what I thought was a great skater. If you want an example of a big guy who was an elite skater at a young age look at J-Bo.

Yeah. Ovechkin (especially younger Ovechkin) had the acceleration that basically no-one else had. He was fast, but not leaps and bounds faster than the other fast guys. He was just able to get to top speed quicker than anyone else. If opposing player started a race from standing feet with Ovechkin, they lost it 10/10. Usually with ridiculius margins. I remember seeing a chart om the fastest skaters and fastest accelerations in the NHL and Ovechkin's acceleration was off the charts. No-one was particularly close.

One similarity with Ovechkin and Laine is that bith guys have extremely powerful stride and strong body. In high traffic, they don't seem to slow down as much as many others. Kind of just powering through the opposing defenders and sticks. Both guys also have the stick ability to keep the puck under control while powering through. That's going to be one of the key elements to Laine's success in the NHL.

I still like Pulju a lot, but the way it seems to me is that Laine has more determination in games. I'm not guestioning Pulju's work ethics, since he's insanely hard working. But his game doesn't seem to have that "killer mentality" Laine has. It's still early and Pulju can end up being better than Laine, but as of this moment I don't see a justification to pick Pulju over Laine.

I think Laine is the most special player out of this draft. Matthews is going to be the #1 pick and rightfully so. He's a complete package and can fill in #1 center role for years to come. But nobody else in this draft possess the similar tools than Laine and those tools make him potentially a game breaker. His tools are also hardest to predict. For a top-2 pick, I think Laine also has pretty big "bust" potential, since his strengths are the rarest and hardest to tap in NHL.

That said, man does this kid have awesome shot arsenal. What a treat.

Agreed mostly, Ovi's skating is elite, and Laine's shot will ensure he's a good PP player at the least. I'd say Matthews has as high a ceiling, and a higher floor, guys with his two way game are rarely top scorer's like him, his game doesn't have a weakness and he has a very high-end wrist shot combined with excellent hands in close. With all the talk about his two way game and smarts, people forget Matthews is an elite scorer everywhere he plays.

 

[kelsier]

Agreed mostly, Ovi's skating is elite, and Laine's shot will ensure he's a good PP player at the least. I'd say Matthews has as high a ceiling, and a higher floor, guys with his two way game are rarely top scorer's like him, his game doesn't have a weakness and he has a very high-end wrist shot combined with excellent hands in close. With all the talk about his two way game and smarts, people forget Matthews is an elite scorer everywhere he plays.

Matthews is a great goal scorer especially for someone that plays center. However he doesn't touch Laine's ceiling when it comes down to skill, physical ability, size and scoring. He's still a world class prospect who's great or elite with everything you could ask from someone his age. That gives him the saver floor and the position provides the edge to go #1 at this point.

 

[93LEAFS]

Matthews is a great goal scorer especially for someone that plays center. However he doesn't touch Laine's ceiling when it comes down to skill, physical ability, size and scoring. He's still a world class prospect who's great or elite with everything you could ask from someone his age. That gives him the saver floor and the position provides the edge to go #1 at this point.

Personally, I think Matthews is the 2nd best center prospect since Crosby, his ceiling is a 35-40 goal-90pt elite two way centerman, basically a better scoring Kopitar. Laine's ceiling is probably a physical 45-50 goal-95 to 100 pt winger, basically numbers inline with the top years by Heatley or Corey Perry. Personally, I'd take Matthews absolute ceiling over Laine's to build around, but I would be ecstatic with either.

 

[Grind]

Mathews Laine and Pulji all pretty significantly out-perform last years highest ranekd euro (Raantanan) by NHLe's and projections.

Mathews pulls a 65% success rate which is crazy high considering how much these tend to punish Euro's.

Laine's likewise is at almost 40% which is also really impressive.

Pulji brings up the rear at 23%, slightly above Raantanens 20% last year.

 

[kooma 13]

Personally, I think Matthews is the 2nd best center prospect since Crosby, his ceiling is a 35-40 goal-90pt elite two way centerman, basically a better scoring Kopitar. Laine's ceiling is probably a physical 45-50 goal-95 to 100 pt winger, basically numbers inline with the top years by Heatley or Corey Perry. Personally, I'd take Matthews absolute ceiling over Laine's to build around, but I would be ecstatic with either.

This is pretty much spot on.

 

[covfefe]

Personally, I think Matthews is the 2nd best center prospect since Crosby, his ceiling is a 35-40 goal-90pt elite two way centerman, basically a better scoring Kopitar. Laine's ceiling is probably a physical 45-50 goal-95 to 100 pt winger, basically numbers inline with the top years by Heatley or Corey Perry. Personally, I'd take Matthews absolute ceiling over Laine's to build around, but I would be ecstatic with either.

This is pretty much spot on.

...McDavid?

 

[93LEAFS]

...McDavid?

2nd best center prospect since Crosby, which implied McDavid was the best, unless you thought I meant Eichel, Stamkos or Tavares for some reason. I'd put Matthews in a tier with the 2nd group of guys mentioned, and personally I like Matthews game the most at comparable stages.

 

[Hagged]

Mathews Laine and Pulji all pretty significantly out-perform last years highest ranekd euro (Raantanan) by NHLe's and projections.

Mathews pulls a 65% success rate which is crazy high considering how much these tend to punish Euro's.

Laine's likewise is at almost 40% which is also really impressive.

Pulji brings up the rear at 23%, slightly above Raantanens 20% last year.

I like the fact that there are players all the way to outside the top 10 with 100% success rates.

Also Barkov was at 40% when he already had made the NHL first line.

Nikita Alexeev being his closest projection match (getting similar low NHLe in his 17, 18 and 19 year old seasons in Erie Otters as Barkov in Tappara/Panthers)

http://www.eliteprospects.com/player.php?player=10221

Stephane Veilleux in QMJHL got similar NHLe numbers to Barkov:

http://www.eliteprospects.com/player.php?player=8839

Jordin Tootoo represents "the success" for Barkov (similar NHLe in WHL for Brandon Wheat Kings as Barkov for Tappara / Panthers until this season)

http://www.eliteprospects.com/player.php?player=9515

 

[covfefe]

2nd best center prospect since Crosby, which implied McDavid was the best, unless you thought I meant Eichel, Stamkos or Tavares for some reason. I'd put Matthews in a tier with the 2nd group of guys mentioned, and personally I like Matthews game the most at comparable stages.

I assumed that you meant 2nd best after Crosby, ie. Crosby - Matthews - et al. My bad

 

[93LEAFS]

I assumed that you meant 2nd best after Crosby, ie. Crosby - Matthews - et al. My bad

All good, I can see how the problem arose.

I like the fact that there are players all the way to outside the top 10 with 100% success rates.

Also Barkov was at 40% when he already had made the NHL first line.

Nikita Alexeev being his closest projection match (getting similar low NHLe in his 17, 18 and 19 year old seasons in Erie Otters as Barkov in Tappara/Panthers)

http://www.eliteprospects.com/player.php?player=10221

Stephane Veilleux in QMJHL got similar NHLe numbers to Barkov:

http://www.eliteprospects.com/player.php?player=8839

Jordin Tootoo represents "the success" for Barkov (similar NHLe in WHL for Brandon Wheat Kings as Barkov for Tappara / Panthers until this season)

http://www.eliteprospects.com/player.php?player=9515

While I like the idea of the site, and love it for chl guys, there is for sure a flaw when equating production to NHLe then applying it across all leagues, for Euro's it may be best just to use other european players for examples, and ignore the CHL and NCAA comparables.

 

[sabrebuild]

Personally, I think Matthews is the 2nd best center prospect since Crosby, his ceiling is a 35-40 goal-90pt elite two way centerman, basically a better scoring Kopitar. Laine's ceiling is probably a physical 45-50 goal-95 to 100 pt winger, basically numbers inline with the top years by Heatley or Corey Perry. Personally, I'd take Matthews absolute ceiling over Laine's to build around, but I would be ecstatic with either.

I like how matthews plays a lot, but I don't see the athleticism required to have that level of expectation.

 

[93LEAFS]

I like how matthews plays a lot, but I don't see the athleticism required to have that level of expectation.

Those aren't my expectations, that is what I see as his absolute ceiling. He's more likely in the 30 goal-75 to 80 pts with excellent 2 way play. But while not an elite skater he still has strong board play and an elite wrist shot, but in regards to athleticism he's much closer to Tavares than either Stamkos or Eichel, but Tavares has bordered those numbers (last year 38 goals-86pts). The same applies to what I said about Laine.

 

[Gsus]

wrong thread

 

[hockeey]

All good, I can see how the problem arose.


While I like the idea of the site, and love it for chl guys, there is for sure a flaw when equating production to NHLe then applying it across all leagues, for Euro's it may be best just to use other european players for examples, and ignore the CHL and NCAA comparables.

Yeah a lot of NHLE sources have wonky numbers for euros. I find behind the net has ones that translate the best (correctly predicted breakouts from panarin along with having Barkov as an extremely productive prospect in his draft year). I think there's too many different variables to put too much weight into NHLE but it's a great tool for assessing different leagues. You just have to find the correct numbers.

 

[Grind]

Yeah a lot of NHLE sources have wonky numbers for euros. I find behind the net has ones that translate the best (correctly predicted breakouts from panarin along with having Barkov as an extremely productive prospect in his draft year). I think there's too many different variables to put too much weight into NHLE but it's a great tool for assessing different leagues. You just have to find the correct numbers.

Yup.

We've been very happy with the correlations along all NA systems (also remember were not using the NHLEs to determine what they're going to do next season, just standardise scoring across leagues)

Right now we're trying to figure out how to stop punishing the euros and are actually looking at the restriction outlined above (only comparing euros to euros).

For the time being though I find it best to just use them to generate your lists, split your euros out separately, and use their rankings internally while accounting for the differences (that a 20%+ in a euro league is probably closer to a 50%+ in a chl league)

They are not perfect and their will always be outliers but it does give a level of insight that might not have been available in the first place.

Ideally we get away from NHLEs entirely and have a big enough database to only compare players to those from the same league, but we just don't have the data or resources to do that currently.

 

[kelsier]

Personally, I think Matthews is the 2nd best center prospect since Crosby, his ceiling is a 35-40 goal-90pt elite two way centerman, basically a better scoring Kopitar. Laine's ceiling is probably a physical 45-50 goal-95 to 100 pt winger, basically numbers inline with the top years by Heatley or Corey Perry. Personally, I'd take Matthews absolute ceiling over Laine's to build around, but I would be ecstatic with either.

I don't see that kind of potential in Matthews even if we ignore McDavid. He has high end hockey IQ, is a very good two way player and excellent goal scorer with a very accurate shot. Still skating separates him from Eichel and McDavid at this point. No doubt a franchise player nevertheless but a step short of generational (and yes I'm aware that he put up more points in a junior league than Eichel). Laine has simply been equal or better while being a lot younger. You can't go wrong with either but if you go purely based on potential I'd pick Laine ahead of him.

 

[93LEAFS]

I don't see that kind of potential in Matthews even if we ignore McDavid. He has high end hockey IQ, is a very good two way player and excellent goal scorer with a very accurate shot. Still skating separates him from Eichel and McDavid at this point. No doubt a franchise player nevertheless but a step short of generational (and yes I'm aware that he put up more points in a junior league than Eichel). Laine has simply been equal or better while being a lot younger. You can't go wrong with either but if you go purely based on potential I'd pick Laine ahead of him.

Only McDavid was generational, Laine, Eichel and Matthews aren't. You don't need to be an elite skater to put up numbers in that range, see Tavares last year.

 

[kelsier]

Only McDavid was generational, Laine, Eichel and Matthews aren't. You don't need to be an elite skater to put up numbers in that range, see Tavares last year.

The way of using the term "generational" as a definite is a little bit off since I would say the jury is still out there for McDavid. We are derailing off-topic here. Yeah Tavares comes into mind and he's not considered to be generational either and for a reason. Regardless, I suppose at this point weighting what we know and what we don't know, is that you can pretty much go with preference regarding who will be the best player of this draft year instead of someone completely blowing away without any contest.

 

[BusQuets]

I can't still not see the shades of Eero Elo with Laine. Both with great shots but bad skating. And it's not even the bad skating but the fact that Laine plays "big ice game". He doesn't move his feet fast enough and doesn't have the explosiveness. Only way he generates speed is big circles using the whole rink what can't be done in NHL. Hope i'm wrong though but there are a lot of question marks here.

 

[kunekune]

I can't still not see the shades of Eero Elo with Laine. Both with great shots but bad skating. And it's not even the bad skating but the fact that Laine plays "big ice game". He doesn't move his feet fast enough and doesn't have the explosiveness. Only way he generates speed is big circles using the whole rink what can't be done in NHL. Hope i'm wrong though but there are a lot of question marks here.

Laine definitly plays smallringgame in offensivezone. Laine is made for playing in small ice.

Last time you said Laine had huge problems in last game vs Kärpät and he should watch videos of Aho and Pulju playing.
I wonder how many times Pulju and Aho have watched that shiftbyshift video from Laines last game.